Birthday Party
by SociallyInept
Summary: Kitty Pryde is invited to the birthday party of the only nonmutant person who doesn't seem to hate her. However, the girl is not remotely Kitty's type and she finds she has the same problems accepting Margaret as her classmates do of her.


Oh my, what's this? I'm actually writing something again? Wow. My muses mock me with their false hopes and deadpan ideas. However, I think I can think again, so after staring at a blank computer screen for twenty minutes, this came out.

Kitty and all character cameos belong to Marvel, Margaret belongs to me. I owned the world and everything in it until the contract expired.

Birthday Party

Margaret Mallory sat behind me in English, and she never cried. I would always be her partner for group assignments in class. No one else wanted to. As soon as the teacher would tell the class to pick one or two partners and read so-and-so, all the desks around me would suddenly shift away except Margaret's right behind me, so I'd end up working with her if I wanted to get my participation points for the day.

It's hard to get your group work participation points when everyone hates you like they hate me. I never really had any friends thanks to my actually having a brain and ambitions in addition to what many refer to as an innocent face, but I was never anybody's enemy until this year's big Mutant Coming Out party. Except for Margaret. Strange, quiet little chubby Margaret.

She doesn't hate me. At least, I don't think so. She's never indicated that she does, even if she's never really indicated anything at all. I'm not entirely sure if she knows how. Or maybe she also knows what it's like to be an outcast. Margaret's definitely not a beauty queen- she has nasty dirty blonde hair with split ends, and her clothes are always frumpy and several dozen sizes too large and she has the sort of face you desperately want to cover with something. Makeup. A paper bag. Anything

And yet…she's smart. Probably way smarter than me. Usually at least the really smart ones have people who pretend to be their friends just so they can copy their homework regardless of their popularity level, but I've never seen Margaret with anyone except me.

I sat on a bench under Rogue's tree (so called because she pretty much attacks anyone else who sits there, and it's my job to guard it when she's home sick, like today) and studied my vocab for the English test tomorrow like a good little bookworm, not really paying attention to anything around me until a large and vaguely musty-smelling shadow fell over my notecards. I looked up.

"Oh, um, hi, Margaret. Can I, like…help you with something?" I couldn't for the life of me figure out why she would single me out outside of class.

She studied me for a second, then to my discomfort smiled shyly. "Tomorrow's my birthday, and I was wondering if you wanted to come…." She handed me a piece of paper ripped out of a notebook. Her address and phone number were written on it.

"There'll be cake…" Margaret had a nasty habit of letting her sentences trail off, I noticed. So she's not very high on the charisma list either.

But who is, excepting Jean and Scott?

I tried not to let my consternation (one of my vocab words) show. Me, go to a birthday party for a girl who'd probably never seen an exfoliant before? Even I have standards-

I was judging.

"S- sure, Margaret. I'll try to, like, be there."

"Thanks, Kitty!"

She smiled at me broadly now, making my insides flinch with guilt. How could I even think of ditching her? What had she done to me? I was worse than my classmates. I pretended to understand what it's like to be rejected and hated, and then I go and almost ditch the only girl who doesn't live with me because she's ugly? I'm such a hypocrite.

The bell rang, and I gathered up my notecards and books for fifth hour and quickly started to walk off, leaving Margaret behind. I paused.

"When is it?"

Margaret glanced over at me. "Six."

"Six. Okay. Um, see you tomorrow, then."

I still felt like a heel the next day in English when we were studying in groups again, Margaret and I. Isn't it better to just not go to a girl's seventeenth birthday party than to go because of pity? Margaret seems pretty happy though. She keeps forgetting whose turn it is to quiz the other, and she's talking about her party, and the cake her mother's supposed to bake, and how she invited lots of people so all the games she had planned would be really fun, and with every sentence I felt worse and worse because I knew that none of it was going to happen.

I was almost certain that I would be the only one at Margaret's birthday party. And even I didn't really want to go.

So at six that evening when I showed up in a skirt and denim jacket bearing a gift of a fresh-bought red sweater that Margaret would hopefully wear instead of the ratty blue one she usually had tied around her waist, I was surprised to see the birthday girl sitting on her porch talking animatedly on the phone. I stood there at the bottom step to the deck while Margaret swung enthusiastically on one of those hanging-down benches.

She smiled at me and put her hand over the mouthpiece. "I just got accepted into Princeton!"

I smiled falsely. Hooray, another person getting into a college I once had my heart set on until it was crushed and ripped apart. I was sort of glad for her. She was definitely smart enough for Princeton, and I was pretty sure she'd be happy there.

She hung up the phone and motioned me to come inside with her. I followed meekly as she skipped into what was apparently a living room. My perception of homeliness and proper proportions for rooms has been skewered a little from living in a mansion, I guess. I could only describe the tiny room in front of me as cozy. You'd have to really like who you live with to live here, because you could be on the other side of the house and still be able to reach out your arm and pat them on the back, it seemed. Okay, so I'm exaggerating a little, but let's say it's a good thing I'm not claustrophobic.

Margaret skipped into the kitchen, making the floorboards groan loudly, and I followed, setting her gift down on the coffee table as I passed it.

"Look at my cake! It's so pretty- I love chocolate!" she paused. "Oh my gosh, you like chocolate too, right? I can't believe I forgot to ask you, Kitty. I'm so sorry."

"No," I waved my hands quickly. "No, I like chocolate too. It's fine. You don't have to, like, ask people things like that all the time. It's like, totally cool."

We lapsed into silence on either side of the dented and warped counter, staring at the small brown cake.

Margaret sighed. I looked up at her.

"No one else is coming, are they?" she asked sadly, her eyes bright with tears.

Now I have this semi-annoying tendency to be overly perky when people are down. Ray calls it 'Valley-Girl Syndrome'. Rogue hates it and even Kurt gets a little nonplussed when I really overdo it, but I used to operate on the belief that happy people make sad ones feel better, and some habits are hard to break even when I know otherwise.

"Why would you think that? Hey, I know. We'll like, put a movie in. That way if people come late, it's totally cool because we won't have really started anything."

Margaret didn't look convinced. Like I said earlier, she's smarter than me and probably knew exactly what I was trying to do. But she nodded even as a tear rolled down her flushed cheek.

"Yeah, I guess."

"So…" I tried to think of anything. "We'll watch something you like. What's you're favorite movie?"

She smiled sadly a little and dipped her head. "You'll think it's stupid."

"No, never. Not me. I know stupid. I live with it. What is it?"

Margaret blushed. "Beauty and the Beast."

My big eyes got bigger. "No way! That's like, my favorite movie too!"

"Really?" Margaret looked back at me hopefully, as though I were a dream that wouldn't last.

"Yeah!"

So she went and got it, and we spent a very pleasant hour or so watching and singing along to a Disney movie. We had some cake- which was absolutely delicious. I wish I could make cake like that. I guess I'll have to try harder. Margaret opened her present and seemed totally thrilled with her new sweater. She put it one right there, and I have to say I can eyeball someone's size like none other. It fit her perfectly and actually looked well with her skin tone and hair too. I brushed and braided her hair, and we gave each other 'makeovers'- I deliberately left some of my makeup at her house for future use- and before I knew it it was ten and I had Jean knocking at the door for me. I had a training session in the morning, so ten was as late as I should stay out.

It was a blast, and Margaret and I arranged to start having study dates at her place every so often. It was almost uncanny how well we ended up hitting it off, once I gave her that chance she deserved. No one else ever did show up, but that was okay. They would have dragged us down anyway.


End file.
